Flip This Wholesaler

I woke up today to the phone ringing. It was my realtor telling me there was someone wanting to show my house @ 11:30. He also told me he will be showing it sometime this week. It was a good way to start my day off. I decided that I am going to start marketing the heck out of this place. Since It's been listed, I haven't done any marketing to sell it, partly because I haven't wanted to take any time away from looking for deals, and partly because I'm a little bitter (Ok, maybe more than a little), about the way this whole deal has turned out. I figured I have done everything else, why should I be the one to find a buyer as well. So, I ate my pride for breakfast, said screw it, and am now on a mission to get this place sold. I could really, really use the 15-20k right now, plus, I want to get the heck out of this place and move closer to the water. I would also like a new house to go along with my new career. A clean slate, if you will. So, I just got back from putting some hand-written signs out (I know I said yesterday that I was done w signs, but this is different). I actually wrote on the back of the bandit signs I have left over, so I'm essentially killing two birds with one stone. People driving one way see that I have a house for sale, people going the other way see that I buy houses. Nice. I also made a flyer with some pictures on it (it took me 2.5 hours to do, and I came really, really close to trashing my computer again). I'm going to put a bunch of them on the bulletin boards at the University which is right around the corner. Also, tomorrow I am going to print up a letter and mail to every house in my community offering a $1,000 finder's fee for a buyer. I'm going to bring it to the restaurants and stores in the area as well. I am making up some handwritten flyers to post at the stores/post offices/ gas stations in the area.

I got 2 calls from sellers today. One I referred to a guy I met last week who used to be a wholesaler and is now doing only short sales. I saw one of his ads and contacted him to see if he would be interested in working together. He is going to pay me 25% of whatever profits he makes from each lead I send him. He is doing around 10 of these/month (not by himself, he has people working for him now). I was tossing the idea around of getting a short sale course because I get a ton of leads that are short sale candidates, but didn't want to spend the time to learn how to do them. This arrangement works out perfectly for me. I would much rather just give the leads to someone who does it full time and take the 25%. I think this will turn out to be a great source of passive income for me as the foreclosures keep piling up. The other lead was an out of state landlord (CA) that is pretty much screwed. He bought a pre-construction home at the top of the market, put 100k down thinking he would be able to cashflow, and bought the property for 250something. Since then (a little over a year ago), between his mortgage payment (option ARM), insurance, and cdd fees, his payments have gone up $600/month. Ouch. Comps are selling for a little under what he bought it for a year ago. I know this sounds awful, but I was snickering to myself just a little bit when he was telling me all of this. Just being honest. I remember 2 summers ago when the market here was going insane, and I was working at the bar listening to these two guys talk about how they just got in on the last of some pre-construcion project and already made 50k just by putting a deposit down. I went into the bathroom and cried because I was so frustrated that I had been trying for several years to make it in real estate, and these two novices just made 50 grand.

I am working on a marketing plan that I think is going to really change things for me. I need some cash to put it into action, and that is just more motivation for me to get a deal as soon as possible.

I was in a pretty bad slump mentally for the last few weeks, and now finally feel like I am ready to take on the world again.